Fiction
When you’re five years old, every day begins the same. I remember staying in bed those cool August mornings, the only one awake, floating with my eyes closed as the birds rummaged through the next door palm tree. Then I would fall back to sleep until I heard my father in the bathroom, softly whistling the Ovaltine commercial as he sharpened his razor on the leather strop.
Read MoreClick the video link above or go to the PocketBear YouTube page to set a reminder (sign in to your YouTube/Google account and click “set reminder” on video) to watch the YouTube premiere of BARZINI TO THE RESCUE, my latest hybrid collaboration with PocketBear productions.
BARZINI TO THE RESCUE goes live on YouTube on Friday 14th August at 8pm (Eastern Time).
Read MoreWhy did you order beets? You know you’re not going to eat them. See? What are you doing, making designs on the place mat? Put the beet back in the dish for god’s sake. Are you just doing this to irritate me? Like with the oatmeal this morning? And don’t give me that look. I am so tired of your looks. Use words why don’t you? Get it out. Keep it bottled up inside you your insides are going to look like that beet juice.
Read MoreFor the same reason I like the 10-minute play form, I like the challenge of what’s now called flash fiction (1000 words or less). This one captures the essence. And (surprise!) is pretty much all in dialogue.
Read MoreNo, I am not ready to leave. Why do you always do this? You always slurp your coffee like a Russian Wolfhound at a bowl of water, like it’s the last cup of coffee on earth you’re ever going to get, and then you do what you just did, just stand up like that, like you’re doing now, put on your coat and your scarf, and stand there, looking down at me with that Day of Judgment glare.
Read MoreSo, what do you want? Me? I don’t know. English muffin. Maybe. I know my eyes are really red. Long night last night, honey. Maybe eggs. Just not fried, the way they lay on the plate and stare up at you. How about French toast? Come on, you have to eat something. Mommy’ll quiz you, then she’ll say I’m a bad Dad.
Read MoreRosellen sipped her lime rickey and puckered her lips. She wished the drink had gin in it, but here at the pool everybody knew Daddy and would tell.
Rosellen tried to think, but it was difficult in the sun. She liked thinking and planning. It was fun to be pretty and smart, but have everybody think she was just pretty. The last chords of “A Summer Place” crackled through the loudspeakers. When she heard it last month she knew that nineteen and fifty-two was the best year of her life; she knew it was her and Bud’s song and decided she loved this summer more than any other, ever.
Except for one thing.
Read MoreI will recall this as a happy time. I can do that. I doubt that Gloria can, will ever be able to. Why I keep the picture, this picture, in the drawer. Gloria never goes near the drawer. I think she knows why, even though she won’t say, but I think it would kill her, or close to.
Read MoreYou asked about what happened, so I tried to remember. Mama never talked about it, not to me at least. What’s here is what I pieced together, through overheard words, voices raised and lowered, looks—the shards stuck in a brain corner, wanting to merge, waiting for a stray sunbeam to strike the remnants from, say, pieces of broken glass, and suddenly, there’s a pattern.
Read MoreThe guy in the picture came back into my life like Marley’s ghost. Of course I knew that face. It was the lead picture in my exhibition in that winter of ’95. When I walked into the gallery, there he was, sitting by the window, an older guy in a trench coat looking like the wind would blow him into the Hudson. He stared, then motioned me to come over. I was surprised he knew who I was.
He answered my question without my asking: “I saw you back then. I got a good memory,” he said. Thirty years ago I was a kid.
Read MoreI loved her before I met her. It was this freak deal. She had lived in this place where I lived, but she lived there two or three people before I came.
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